


four and a half

by Thomas_Fooll



Series: Numbers (Joshler) [5]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Bromance, Josh is a phantom character of sorts, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Slow Burn, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 08:07:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20963255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thomas_Fooll/pseuds/Thomas_Fooll
Summary: AU in which summer comes to the Northern City.





	four and a half

**Author's Note:**

> This is a translation from Russian. You can read the original work at https://ficbook.net/readfic/6409715.  
Also, as this is a songfic:
> 
> Solen - Olof, kära Olof;  
Other Lives - For 12;  
Imannu El - White Seraphs Wild.
> 
> This work was inspired by a phrase that came to my mind one cold winter evening. Try and guess which one.

Summer comes to the Northern City, and warm air drowns in the pouring rain.

Josh Dun buys an old Polaroid camera and wears white T-shirt with stars plastered to its black yoke. Josh Dun eats his ice-cream and drinks bright, almost neon-blue ice coffee coctails, pets puppies in the streets and stares into pale Northern People's faces with a typical hint of interest and attention.

Josh Dun strides forward in a succesful attempt to keep up with the times, he's unstoppable and unspottable, and Tyler writes on a crampled piece of paper: "I'll always be waiting here for you". Two days later he will throw the paper away, all torn and feathered from being in his pocket, never having found enough bravery in himself to give it to the addressee.

Summer comes to the Northern City, meaning some odd imperceptible freedom somewhere in the chest region and a white glister of puddles slipping away in a dim gloomy sky.

Summer comes to the Northern City, and this is already something to write home about, because the snow is gone, and fingers are not clenched from the cold.

Josh Dun buys a Polaroid camera and makes present into hi/s/tory with one shutter click. Tyler hangs the photos onto his walls and ceilings.

\- - -

This is just like finishing your shift at work and catching the earliest train to Cleveland. This is just like shattering other person's hopes and dreams. This is a Polariod camera bought a couple days ago and photos all over his place, like, filling up the empty space of these rooms with their story, coming from nowhere.

Tyler Joseph has seen so much worse, but now there's this sense of constant chase, and Joshua William Dun runs away with this unstoppable time of his, yeah, completely unreachable. Tyler Joseph holds onto his aching with migraine head, books a one-way ticket to Cincinnati and writes on the blank sheet of notebook paper: "I'm so far away". Vibration starts behind his face and a bit above the throat and lasts to the feet, bringing these invincible-invisible-ineffable rhymes-rythms. Tyler will throw this piece of paper away into a burning pile in the rubbish bin just in the Cincinnati downtown, never having found enough bravery to send it to the addressee.

Summer comes to the Northern City and Tyler leaves, incapable of surviving this rain.

In the morning ginger-red sun rises above empty yellow fields; Tyler Joseph sits up, holding his knees pressed up against his chest. He is at a gas station exactly halfway down the Northern City-Jeffersonville road, which takes up exactly two thirds of a way to Cincinnati. His mind consists of thought of Josh Dun, and his fucking polaroids, and puppies, and summer, and the fact that Josh would certainly take a photo of this moment just to give Tyler the only copy of it. Tyler's mind is a fiction: it's like merging with characters from the books you've read, like writing his own fairytale. It's sitting at a gas station, having paused your constant run, and losing your mind because of the summertime in the Northern State.

Summer comes to the Northern City, kicking Tyler out of his own damned head.

\- - -

Summer comes to the Northern City, painting on the boy's hands with freckles, leaving pale bitemarks in Tyler's hair, and Josh Dun brings his crowns made out of chamomiles (Tyler doesn't like chamomiles, man), polaroids and a shirt with white- there's so much of this white already- peonies.

Summer comes to the Northern City, and on those dull days Josh Dun crafts embroidered pins, transfers pictures to his T-shirts and commits to oil-painting, of course, hanging his polaroids off his ceiling.

Tyler chants poems into the raininess of the day while standing on a rooftop, and he says: "_...in the land, to where the Sun is going..._"  
And he says: "_...to you, calmly, half-voiced I say to you..._"

Tyler writes on a piece of paper: "Talking is not always an option, you know". He will never give it to the addressee, instead throwing it into the rubbish bins just outside of Josh's favourite café.

Summer comes to the Northern City, the Boat and the Paddle get drowned by Tidal Waves.

Josh Dun insists on this all not being that simple, deep-dives headfirst into Google search bar, giving up his sleep, searching-searching-searching. Tyler writes down these words about conspiracy theories and the sky the colour of people's hair, _teetching_ heads and dog-like teeth. Tyler writes and there's so many flowers everywhere; everything buzzes with its own vibration frequency as if he is not Tyler but rather some bloody phone in silent mode.

Summer comes to the Northern City, and every thought rhymes with another. Does it?

/när hilmen fått en farlig färg/

//in between lives, in between deaths//

///when your mind turns to fiction///

\- - -

Summer comes to the Northern City, trembling the air around in stiff circles, smashing together pastel-tinted low-hanging rainclouds and blurry silhouettes of cars wandering through a foggy, glistering with humid air streets.

Josh Dun filters sunlight into his room one ray at a time, forces blinding strays of twizzling photones through dark curtains. Josh Dun buys a Polaroid camera and wears his white t-shirt with white stars plastered to black yoke. Every time Tyler thinks of himself in this context he is nowhere to be seen, excluded and forced to be nonexistent, he is outside and inside, seeing it all but- surprisingly- not participating in making hi/s/tory.

Josh Dun buys a Polaroid camera and makes hi/s/tory with every landscape he sees. Tyler writes on a scrap of paper: «I’ll give you wings». He will give it to it’s addressee as soon as he starts feeling included, yeah, right.

Summer comes to the Northern City, and Tyler draws angels all over his old crappy notebooks' margins, imagining he never needs to take notes about Josh Dun again.

\- - -

Summer comes to the Morthern City, and gray tones spill all over the stuffy streets, brighter and longer: surviving through the gusts of wind just by being forever on the run, patchy cloud splinters tumble down the alleyways and basements. Tyler tilts his head back so that it almost hits his spine and imagines that his eyes are windows.

Josh Dun's favourite café has '_bridge as a dialogue_' all over their receipts, Tyler adds to this '_words as wings_', crumbles everything, puts it in his pocket, puts into a photoframe with dozens more when he gets home.

_eyes as windows_  
_words as wings_  
_bridge as_ _a dialogue_

'do you wanna sleep?'  
'i don't want anything'

Summer comes to the Northern City, Tyler builds a treehouse and doesn't leave it while it rains, so.

Tyler doesn't leave it at all.

_Mind turned to fiction._


End file.
